


'tis the season

by veterization



Category: Nancy Drew (Video Games)
Genre: Christmas, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-03 02:01:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2834063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veterization/pseuds/veterization
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nancy visits Frank and Joe in Bayport for a few weeks for Christmas. Of course Frank will be able to handle it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'tis the season

**Author's Note:**

> This is so ALMOST LATE. I wanted to finish it ages ago, but then December swept by and it is now a last minute Christmastime contribution to make you smile and remind you how totally over the moon Frank Hardy is for Nancy Drew.

Frank is not entirely sure why he's currently wearing a holiday sweater.

On the one hand, he does know. His mother plucked it from the attic for him, mothballs and all, in her attempt to spread the Christmas joy she's so intent on sharing. On the other hand, however, he's about to be seen with it on by Nancy, to say nothing of the hundreds of passerby in the airport who have been giving his sweater judgmental looks. He's not entirely sure he should be worrying about Nancy's opinion of his sweater, though, not when his crush is Completely Under Control. 

"Hey," Joe says, mustard from his airport hot dog smeared down his chin, "are you sure you're okay spending Christmas with Nancy when that torch you're carrying for her could burn down the whole house?"

Frank glares sharply at Joe, even though Joe is frustratingly immune to his glares. He shrugs without a care as he swallows down the remains of his hot dog. 

"I'm fine," Frank grits out. When Joe squints at him, Frank repeats himself. "I'm fine. I'm happy to see her. That's it." He seesaws from foot to foot, taking a moment to turn to Joe. "Do you have to wear that?"

Joe looks at him, affronted by his critique. On his head, shimmering with glitter and attached to a small set of—truthfully unnecessary—golden bells is a mistletoe hanging from a headband, poised perfectly over him to incite jolly cheer in all. Frank is not feeling jolly, even as Joe tips it so it rests at a charmingly crooked angle. 

"Well, excuse me, Mr. Scrooge," Joe says, readjusting the headband where it rests behind his ears. The bells jingle. "I'm enjoying the season."

The clock on the wall above the board of arrivals switches to 10:43. Nancy's plane, due in two minutes, is probably already docked in the back. Passengers are probably already standing up and crowding the hallway even though the gates are far from open, Nancy among them. A funny flop rolls through his stomach that he blames on breakfast.

A stream of travelers erupts from the gate then, most of them slouching with exhaustion and clutching their carry-on bags like they’re full of dead weights. Frank rolls onto his tip-toes, eyes scanning the crowd for a familiar head of hair, and that’s when Nancy makes it through the throng of passengers.

“Yo!” Joe calls out, waving a hand high into the air. 

Nancy spots them. Her face lights up, a bright smile on her lips the moment she sees Joe's boisterously waving arms, a cream hat on her head and a dark belted coat undone around her frame. Frank wishes the people clogging the way in front of her would shuffle just a little bit faster.

"Heyyy, it's the Drewster!" Joe extends his arms and smoothly steps in front of Frank to intercept their hug, probably just to annoy his brother that much more and enjoy the tick growing on his temple. His mistletoe jingles on his head as he twirls Nancy around. "Like my headgear?"

He puts her back on his feet, wagging his head in her face so the mistletoe gets the attention it deserves. She laughs, a sound that instantly reminds Frank of how much he's missed her. 

"How many poor girls have you trapped under that thing?"

"Aah, you know I only have eyes for you," Joe says, bending his knees so they're the same height. He taps his jaw. "Pucker up."

She kisses him on his cheek, nothing like the sort of wet smooch Frank usually gets on his cheek from his grandmother after she has one too many holiday nightcaps. Frank, for one crazy moment, wishes he was the fool wearing the mistletoe headband. 

"It's so nice to see you again," Nancy is saying, and then she's wrapping her arms around Frank's shoulders and pulling him into a long hug. The knitted meshes of her hat are warm on his jaw as she does so. 

"Nice hat," Frank says. He squeezes her for a long second, then lets her pull away. "You look great."

"Hannah's present for me," she says, pulling it down over the back of her head. "You guys look great too. That’s a… great sweater, Frank.”

Frank pulls on it subconsciously, tugging at his collar where the wool gets scratchy. It has a goddamn penguin on it wearing a Santa hat, it is most definitely not a _great sweater_. The airport feels at least twenty degrees hotter than it did a moment ago.

“We’re just happy you’re here,” Joe pipes up, grinning. He claps a hand on Nancy’s shoulder. “Let’s get you to baggage claim, yes?”

\--

"Nancy! Oh, it's so nice to see you."

The door has hardly closed behind them before Laura comes over to them, pulling Nancy into a welcoming hug. Nancy hasn't been up to Bayport much, but she's visited enough to be doted on by Frank and Joe's parents for her polite manners and iron will and willingness to jump into danger to save their sons, so Frank isn't all too surprised to see such a friendly exchange. As a matter of fact, it’s probably friendlier than what Joe and Frank get when they come back home after a long case, which is a little disgruntling. All Aunt Gertrude ever gives them is a whack over the back of the head for not being careful enough.

"Thank you for inviting me," Nancy says. "I've been looking forward to visiting."

"Us too. Frank couldn't stop talking about it," Laura says, and when she catches Frank's mortified eyes over Nancy's shoulder a moment later, she hastens to add, "Joe too."

"It's been a while since we worked a case together, so it's just nice to see them again.”

“Of course, of course,” Laura draws her further into the house, making room for Frank and Joe to lug in the bags. “We’re happy to have you here.”

“Heard you got our sons out of a real snag last time you were working a case together,” Fenton mentions, saluting Nancy with his hot chocolate. “Thanks for that.”

“Yeah, thanks for that, dad,” Joe says with just enough of a bitter edge that Frank claps him on the shoulder. “We Hardy boys can handle ourselves just fine. Sometimes.”

“Joe, why don’t you bring Nancy’s bag upstairs,” Laura says, ignoring Joe’s noise of protest. “We have the guest room all set up.”

Joe drags Nancy’s luggage upstairs while Laura and Fenton head into the kitchen, ready to show off to Nancy what dinner they’ve made for her. It’s a little overwhelming how Frank feels like he’s brought his girlfriend home to meet her future in-laws, and damned if that isn’t a dizzying thought. Nancy smiles over her shoulder at him.

“Sorry they’re so intense,” Frank says. “They’re just really excited.”

“That’s okay,” Nancy tells him. “I am too.”

Her smiles lingers longer than Frank feels it needs to. And that’s it. He’s fucked.

\--

Weeks ago when the idea of Nancy visiting for the holidays was first introduced, Frank was excited. Here in the now, he sees it for what it truly is: an elaborate plan to slowly kill Frank. 

Four hours. Nancy's been in the house for four hours and Joe has already managed to trap her under the mistletoe twice. Frank's head is going to explode, and boy, it will cause a very big mess when it does.

"Admit it, Nance. You're doing this on purpose to get a little sugar from yours truly."

Already puckered up for now the third time in the day—Frank would keep a tally if he didn't already know the immense stress it would inflict on him—Joe draws a giggling Nancy closer to him.

"All right, I think that's enough," Frank's mouth blurts out suddenly, and then his legs are moving him forward. He grabs the nearest chair, pushing it under the mistletoe so he can climb it and dismantle the damn hazard.

"Frank, what on earth are you doing?" His father asks, casually stirring a mug of hot chocolate from the doorway. 

What _is_ he doing?

"Being a Grinch," Joe answers for him, and then yanks on his pant leg. "Or is something else the matter?"

He says it with such meticulously placed emphasis that Frank feels uncomfortable even looking at him, let alone making eye contact with Nancy, who he can feel staring at him as he quickly drops his hands from where he was aggressively removing the mistletoe from the ceiling. 

Four hours, and Joe is already encouraging Frank to ruin his friendship with Nancy. The next few weeks will be a slow, painful strangle of his neck. 

"I was just fixing it," Frank says, tipping the mistletoe a centimeter to the left. Its berries, white and beady, seem to look at him with a judgmental stare. "All done."

"He's just crabby he's not getting any," Joe stage whispers to Nancy, whose mouth drops open. Frank thumps him over the head the second he makes it back to the floor. 

All right. Just a few more weeks to go.

\--

"So what are we thinking?" Frank holds two DVDs up for Joe and Nancy to consider. "A Charlie Brown Christmas or A Christmas Story?"

"Neither," Joe says promptly. "Home Alone. Can't go wrong with Macaulay Culkin."

Frank grabs a few more DVDs off the rack by the TV, rifling through the collection of holiday films. 

"We could also watch It's A Wonderful Life," Frank offers.

"Black and white?" Joe says, sounding less than pleased. "Why don't we all just gather around the fire so dad can read us Dickens?"

“You pick one, Frank,” Nancy says. Frank considers, for one pleasing moment, choosing the black and white specials just to annoy Joe, but then remembers _the holidays_ and _being nice_. He pushes A Christmas Story into the DVD player, watching the CD slide smoothly into place. 

"Saved you a seat, bro," Joe pats the area next to him on the couch a few times, a rather small remainder of a cushion that would work well enough if the other side of the spot wasn't occupied by Nancy. Frank stops in front of the couch.

"No," he says right away. His ears are burning. "I'm not crowding Nancy."

"She's not crowded," Joe cheerfully pats the spot once more. "Right, Nancy?"

Nancy, however, seems to have come to the same conclusion as Frank in terms of what little space there is left on the sofa and has hidden a pink blush on her cheeks by staying unnaturally interested in the DVD remote. And no, Frank will not do this. He will not endure two hours of A Christmas Story with Nancy's thigh pressed against his. Never mind how much more comfortable she'd be on his lap given the available room—

His body makes the jerk decision to sit down before his mind can veto the idea, wedging himself between Joe and Nancy as quickly and smoothly as possible. Joe is hiding snickers in his fist, urging Frank to give into the recurring impulse to whack Joe over the head. 

"Now that we're all comfy," Joe punctuates this statement with a resounding slap to Frank's knee. Frank will kill him later. "Ready to start the movie?"

No, Frank is not ready to start the movie. What he's ready for is snatching a pillow up from the sofa and jamming it over his lap for safety's sake and doing his best to dispel thoughts of Nancy's leg warm against his own, Nancy's shoulder lined up with his, Nancy's entire side pressed into him. 

“Yes,” is what Frank ends up gritting out. He refuses to move a muscle. He refuses to so much as bump into Nancy inappropriately for the next few hours. He refuses to even _think_ about how close she is and how her hand is in her lap, almost waiting to be held. 

The movie begins. Frank follows about a third of the entire thing because, as a classic failure, he does nothing but think about Nancy’s side pressed against his. 

\--

His mother knows everything. She has always known everything, from how in love with Nancy Frank is, to how little Nancy herself knows. The fact that she knows everything without Frank ever divulging a single word of his feelings to her is both impressive and terrifying. 

He feels her omniscience now more than ever while she's chopping potatoes in the kitchen for an afternoon stew while Frank sits at the counter snacking on the freshly diced carrots, feeling her eyes on him every few seconds. Nancy's upstairs checking in with her father with a quick call before lunch and Joe's busy helping their dad put snow chains on the car tires for the upcoming weather, leaving Frank alone with his mother to be analyzed like an open picture book. 

"So," Laura says as a way of starting the discussion. "You've been having a good time with Nancy."

She says it in a certain way—a distinctly Mom Way in the way that moms always know everything. It makes Frank wonder, is he really that obvious or do parents really have superpowers, his mother supporting the latter theory. Frank feels very x-rayed just looking her in the eye.

"Yeah," he agrees, quickly breaking the eye contact lest she download more of his secrets from his brain. "It's nice to see her when we're not working a case together."

"I'm glad she's here," Laura says. "It must be hard at home ever since she broke up with her boyfriend." 

Frank looks up fast enough to earn himself a mild case of whiplash. "What?"

Laura stops chopping for a moment. "She didn't tell you?" 

“What?” Frank repeats, apparently only capable of one word. “She and Ned broke up? How do you know?”

“Her father called me a while ago to talk about her staying here with us and he mentioned it,” she keeps one eye on Frank as she continues dicing the potatoes, as if waiting for him to break out into an Irish jig at the mere mention of Nancy being available. “They were together for a long time, weren’t they? Must be hard on her.”

“Yeah, um,” Frank shakes his head, trying to remember just how long it had always been _NedandNancy_ , a constant reminder that Nancy was happy, and always had been. “Years, I think.”

“You should try and comfort her,” his mother pipes up. “What she needs now is a friend.”

He looks at her and wonders for a moment if he’s being chided or encouraged. Surely his mother knows of his feelings, surely she sees him longingly looking at Nancy across tables. And surely she likes Nancy too. He’s only ever heard her speak fondly of Nancy, what with her sharing interests with her sons and sometimes being responsible for getting them out of sticky situations. Still, and frustratingly so, he doesn't know if the word he should be focusing on here is _comfort_ or _friend_.

"Yeah, sure," Frank says slowly. He takes his time chewing a long slice of carrot. "Me and Joe can do that."

"Oh, nothing against your brother," Laura murmurs, more to the potatoes than to Frank. "But I think you and Nancy have a closer bond. Similar souls."

The carrot doesn't go down his throat all too smoothly. "Similar souls?"

"I just think you two..." She stops, even her knife freezing where she's halfway done with dicing. She sends a sturdy smile Frank's way. "...you're just very special, that's all." She dumps the remains of the vegetables into the nearby bubbling pot, sticking a wooden spoon ladled with broth in Frank's face a moment later. "Honey, taste this, would you?"

Frank tastes the spoon suddenly thrust into his face. If it's a diversionary tactic, he's not quite done with the topic yet. _Similar souls_. How can his mother blurt out such a thing without explaining herself? How can Nancy be single for months and never thought it—or even him—important enough to share?

"How is it?" His mother asks, withdrawing the spoon. Frank licks his lips and vaguely catches the taste of chicken broth. 

"Fine. I mean, good." He wipes his mouth off on his sleeve. 

"Oh, honey," Laura says, her hand reaching out to pat Frank's cheek. From the sympathetic look in her eyes he's pretty sure she's no longer referring to the soup. "You can discuss it with her tonight. Your father wants some extra hands while he picks out the tree anyway. You and Nancy can go."

After the fiasco that was the tightly wound muscles of Christmas movie night, Frank thinks he should probably not engage in too many personal outings with Nancy for the rest of her trip, but then again, he wonders exactly how romantic an icy lot of Christmas trees can be. 

“All right,” he says. “I’ll go.” 

\--

For what the overpriced hot chocolate, fat trees, and stuffed lots are worth, Frank is a little surprised that looking for a Christmas tree is as romantic as it is.

Or at least, _feels_. Everything in the air from the light dusting of falling snow to tinny speakers playing Mariah Carey seems to be shouting at him to serenade Nancy right here by the pine trees. Grabbing her hand would probably do the trick as well. Wrapping an arm around her would too. The options are endless, each as terrifying as the last. 

"The smell's nice, right?" Frank says. His arms feel cumbersome on his side, like they should be occupied lugging trees if they won't be busy holding onto Nancy, a feeling of discomfort that only seems to get worse the more he falls hopelessly in love with her. There was once a time when he could look her in the eye without thinking of thirty different ways to describe the shade of blue of her irises in under a minute, a time that has long passed by now.

"I love it too," Nancy says, taking a deep breath. "Really smells like Christmas."

A silence falls outside of the crunch of their boots and the soft music wafting over the lot. Up ahead by a few paces is Fenton, petting needles and shaking tree trunks while Frank and Nancy lag behind, eyes scanning the lines of trees for something grand enough for the living room.

"Why didn't you tell me about you and Ned?"

She startles, her lips parting in a soft o for a second as her hands fumble around a springy branch. "Oh," she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "Your mom told you?"

Frank nods. "I think your dad might've told her," he says. "Did you not want me to know?"

"No, of course you can know," she assures him. "I just didn't want to make a big announcement out of it, you know."

Fenton's left a sizable distance between them now, because Dads Know just like Moms Know. Frank wonders if, as the picture of nonchalance with his hands in his pockets, he's actually listening in. 

"I get it," Frank says. "Are you, um. Is there any chance of you guys working it out?"

Nancy shakes her head. "It's not like that. There isn't anything to work out, we're just not compatible."

_Not compatible._ "Oh," Frank nudges her gently with his elbow. "Are you all right?"

She looks at him abruptly, the tip of her nose nipped pink from the frosty air. "Actually, yes," she says. "It's good for me. I was with Ned for so long, I couldn't even tell where I ended and he began which—which was strange, because we're so different. Too different."

_We're pretty alike,_ Frank wants to say, but he wants to hear everything she has to say more. He smiles to encourage her to continue. She mirrors him with her own smile.

"So really, I'm all right. My dad doesn't think so, but he's always worried about me."

"Me too," Frank says, unintentionally, and feels Nancy's eyes burn into his. 

He realizes then that his hand is reaching out towards her, as if to tuck her hair under her hat or pull it over her ear, something blatantly intimate and out of bounds. He jerks his hand back.

For a moment, something suspends between them, frozen and fragile, hanging on a precipice that's bound to fall the second either one of them moves—a twitch, a shuffle, a batting of an eyelid. Nancy looks like she has something to say, something to ask, but then she's smiling and letting out of a huff of laughter that leaves her mouth in white, cold puffs. 

"Are you going soft on me, Hardy?"

_On the contrary, he's always plenty hard around you,_ Joe's voice chirps in his ear, Frank stomping it away before it can fester in his brain. 

"Never," he promises her. 

She smiles. She slips her arm into the crook of Frank's, and it feels easy, comfortable, infuriatingly natural. Everything with them feels natural, and that's the problem. It tricks Frank's brain into thinking that there's more between them then there really is sometimes, up until Ned's face pops up in his head—then again, Ned's gone now, too far gone to impact his conscience again. 

"You kids find anything nice yet?"

Frank's jerked out of whatever reverie he was unfairly lulled into, one where he can pretend he and Nancy have something charged and electric and potentially romantic between them. There's his dad, broad smile on his face and one hand still nursing his complimentary beverage. 

"Oh, uh," Frank points feebly over his shoulder where he knows the taller, pointier trees are. As if he was even looking at the trees. "Saw a few. You have anything?"

"A real nice Douglas fir caught my eye down the lot," he says. "Want to come and see?"

“Of course,” Nancy says.

They follow Fenton to the Douglas firs with the snow loud beneath their boots. Nancy keeps her arm wound in Frank’s the entire time.

\--

"Hmmm. I don't know. Do you think it looks good?"

"I have no idea. I'm up here, so I don't exactly have the best perspective, now do I?"

"Left. About an inch left."

Frank adjusts the star poised on the top of the tree, tilting it to the left as requested. His hand, now thoroughly covered in golden sparkles, aches from having to reach the top of the tree—taller than necessary—for the sixteenth time. Rubbing a dish rag between her hands, his mother comes in at the most inopportune moment to also share her opinion.

"It's leaning to the left," she says, squinting. "Go right."

"No, that's too far."

"For god's sake," Frank lets the star hang lopsidedly for one frustrated moment. "Does somebody else want to do it?"

It’s been a week. One week since Nancy’s arrived and Frank is amazed he’s still in one piece. He thought for sure by now he would’ve imploded, possibly to the point of making a mess so large that his parents would be scrubbing the walls well into the new year.

Joe’s been less than helpful. Joe knows everything, doesn’t even need to ask what Frank’s feeling, and has been delighting in teasing him by touching Nancy at every opportune moment. An arm slung over her shoulder, a kiss to her cheek, an unnecessary waltz to the Justin Bieber Christmas album. It’s as if he’s goading Frank into doing something about it. He has, Frank admits, considered screaming. That always alarms people.

“Get down here,” Joe says. “I’ll show you how it’s done.” Joe pulls Frank down the ladder, climbing it to the top rung to adjust the lopsided star. Infuriatingly enough, he manages to keep it straight. “Hey Nance, how big do my muscles look from up here?”

“For god’s sake.” Frank pinches the bridge of his nose.

He can handle himself. He’s an adult by now, by god. He’s been half in love with Nancy for years and has still been a functioning human being without doing anything about it. He can withstand the next few weeks as well.

Just a few more weeks to go.

\--

"I'm impressed, Frank Hardy."

Rolling out a thin layer of perfectly blended cookie dough, Nancy shoots Frank a thousand watt grin that tickles his insides. He lays the cookie cutters out on the table, picking out anything remotely holiday-themed as an option. He's not entirely sure why he's on baking duty when it's usually his mother who spends her time in a cloud of flour preparing Yule Logs once the holidays hit, but he's apparently fairly good at it, so he'll hold back on the complaints. 

"Really?"

"Absolutely," Nancy says. "These cookies will turn out great. How come you never told me you bake?"

"I didn't know myself."

She wipes her forearm over her forehead to smooth back her misfit hair, floury wrists leaving white behind on her temples. It's horribly endearing, so much that Frank has to hide his grin in his hand.

"Nance," he says, "you have some flour on your face."

Nancy's fingers come up to wipe it away, only distributing more of the mess, this time down her cheek. "Here?"

"Nah, it's a bit higher?"

Another smear. "Here?"

He lets himself laugh by now, stepping closer to her. "Let me," he says, swiping his thumb over her forehead, and then her temple, and then her cheek. Underneath the flour, her skin is remarkably soft. He presses the pad of his thumb down her face, feeling down her jaw just to touch, just to see.

"Did you get it?" Nancy asks suddenly. Her voice sounds quieter than usual, more intimate. 

“Yeah,” Frank says. His breath feels a little lost in his lungs.

“Good,” Nancy says. “Because you have some on your face.”

It happens very fast. One second, Frank is next to Nancy wondering exactly how stupid it would be to impulsively kiss her, and the next second, there is nothing but a cloud of white dust and a handful of flour on his head powdering down his face. His eyes widen when he realizes exactly what just went down.

“No way,” he says, smearing flour off his forehead. Things only seem to get dustier. 

“Oops,” Nancy says. “I think I missed some.”

“Don’t you dare,” Frank growls. He jams his fist into the bag of flour, flinging a generous amount in Nancy’s direction. Once again, a cloud of white erupts like smoke hiding a magic trick, and the second the flour settles he sees Nancy, clumps of white in her hair. She’s laughing, and there’s already a handful of ammunition in her hand.

The flour goes flying. Frank dodges it just quickly enough to avoid getting a mouthful of flour, instead catching it on his shirt. He doesn’t remember the last time he’s been this juvenile, always taking on the responsible role of the older brother who has to pull Joe out of his childish antics, never the one giving in to any urges of immaturity. He dumps more flour on Nancy’s head, watching it dapple her hair and dust her shoulder.

She grabs his wrists; he reaches for her hair again. Another cloud of dust erupts as they grab each other, breathless laughing sending the flour flying into the air, leaving trails of white.

“I have some bad news, Frank,” Nancy says. “I think your hair’s grown old.”

He laughs, a wheezing laughter that catches onto the flour. He can only imagine what he looks like by looking at her, covered head to toe in white dust. There’s flour on her eyelashes, just a gentle sprinkling, and some more on her lips. Suddenly, the laughter dies in his throat.

“We’re a mess,” he whispers. 

“I know,” Nancy says. She’s whispering too.

The moment feels more romantic than it ought to. Hell, it’s just _flour_.

"You know, Frank, I've been thinking."

Okay, so this is the moment. There's probably flour on his nose and his hands are sweating, but this, right here over Christmas cookie dough, is the moment. The only thing missing is Bing Crosby's tinny voice singing at them from an old radio in the corner. 

"What about?"

She must feel it too, the way the air feels like it's suspended between them with electricity. He'll just say it if she won’t. 

"Well, I—"

"You guys!" 

Frank jerks away from Nancy like he's been caught with his hand in the cookie jar before dinner, the moment broken in an instant as Joe appears in the doorway with a wild smile on his face. He has mismatched mittens in one hand and one arm already stuck in the sleeve of his coat, so Frank sees where this is going. Something inside of him, something crushed and deflated, wants to shout at his brother to give them three minutes of privacy and then carelessly interrupt. 

"Let me guess," Frank mutters. "It's—"

"It's snowing!!" Joe waves his mittens in the air with fervor. "Come on, we're wasting precious time. We have to build the best snowman in the neighborhood."

Frank looks over at Nancy for a sign of reticence, something in her eyes that shows she'd rather be in here finishing their conversation than outside frolicking with Joe in the snow, but she's not looking at him. She's already taking her apron off, sending Joe a resigned smile that speaks for itself.

"All right," she says. "Let's just put these in the oven first."

Joe stays frozen in the doorway. Frank watches his eyes skeptically rove over the counters and the floors before they land on Nancy and Frank.

“What the hell happened in here?”

\--

"Now that," Frank says, folding his arms together, "is the ugliest, most misshapen snowman I've ever seen."

In front of him with mounds of snow packed into his hands, Joe focuses on adding more clumps of snow to the lopsided head of his creation. It really is frightening, the way the carrot is crooked and the parts don't quite align, like if Dr. Seuss went into the horror genre.

"It's just... very asymmetric," Nancy says.

Frank turns to her. "That's very diplomatic of you and all, but let's be honest here. This is a failure of a snowman."

"Go on, go on," Joe waves an icy glove dismissively in their direction. "Make fun. I'm proud of this thing. I'm naming it after you, Frank."

"No," Frank shakes his head. "Name it after Nancy."

"Hey!" Nancy says. "I'll get you for that, you know."

Frank turns away from Joe's snowman, raising an eyebrow. With her mischievous grin and red cheeks, hair curling around the edge of her knit hat, Frank is perfectly happy to focus on her and forget about helping Joe salvage his snowman like a good brother would. 

"Oh really?"

"Really," Nancy licks her lips, her eyes focused on something over Frank's shoulder. 

He follows the line of her gaze—a rookie mistake, really—and only has a second to process before a flash of white warns him of the impeding blast of snow landing on his face. 

It's cold, and hard, and even wet where a few chunks of snow slide down his cheek and threaten to work down past his scarf. The shock of the chill subsides a moment after Frank wipes his face dry with his glove. His reflexes have seen better moments. 

"Are you proposing a snowball fight?" he asks, shifting from foot to foot, on guard and alert for incoming snowballs now that he's already been pelted in the face. 

“Well,” Nancy says, something wicked in her eyes that Frank is not turned on by. No. “We didn’t get to finish our flour fight.”

"I should warn you. I've had years of experience going up against Joe over the years."

"You're on, Frank," Nancy says, clearly inspired by the suggestion of a challenge. "Didn't I ever tell you about the time I mastered my snowball fight skills when I was in Canada on a case?"

"Bring it," Frank says.

They stare at each other for a long moment, waiting for one of them to make the first move. Then they both bolt.

Frank ducks behind Joe’s snowman, who is hardly amused at his masterpiece being used as a shield and promptly pushes Frank out of the way. He catches a snowball to his shoulder for that, quickly pouncing back into action by grabbing a handful of snow, crouching low, and pelting a ball in Nancy’s direction.

Nancy’s too good for him. She ducks out of the way, the snowball hitting the bush behind her instead. All right. If snowballs won’t do the trick, he’ll just have to use alternative methods.

Another snowball comes flying Frank’s way that hits him in the chest. It startles him for one moment before he jumps back into action, hurling another freshly made snowball in Nancy’s direction. This time her squeal indicates that he’s struck gold, especially when he sees her wiping snow off her forehead. He lunges forward, reaching for her ankles to tackle her to the untouched snow.

They fall together without grace into the snow, Nancy squealing as they lose their balance and go tumbling into the plush cold. It showers up around them in a powder at the impact, the cold a surrounding pillow that starts chilling them through their winter coats. 

Nancy starts laughing first. It's an infectious sound the second Frank hears it, unabated and unbridled, the type of laughter that shows off all her teeth and crinkles the corners of her eyes. Frank starts laughing then too, captivated by the way the snow is sticking to her hair in white, icy clumps. He goes to wipe some off her cheek, brushing his gloved thumb over her while she grabs his forearms for support. 

"You have snow on your face," Frank says between bouts of chuckles. He doesn't even know what's so funny—the state of them both, the way every part of him has now been pelted with snowballs, or maybe how their fight has ended up in the two of them tangled up in a graceless glob in the snow. "How did that even happen?"

"Your fault," she says, jamming a finger into his chest. "Honestly, what were you aiming for, my eyes?"

"Your nose, maybe," Frank says. "It's cute when it's all pink."

A shadow falls over them both, an ominous omen that foreshadows the splat of ice that lands between his shoulder blades. 

Frank looks over his shoulder. "Joe! What the hell?"

"Sorry," Joe says, not looking sorry in the least. "Didn't realize this was a private snowball fight for two."

His eyes seem to say a lot more than his words as they rake over where the two of them are still splayed together over the snow. Frank feels his face heat up—which is ludicrous, really, is he honestly going to feel judged by his little brother—and scrambles to get up from where he's positioned over Nancy. Some of the snow has seeped into his jeans at the knees, something he hadn't noticed before when he was still focused on the way Nancy felt beneath him, laughing in the snow—and no, he's not exploring that train of thought. 

"Of course not," Nancy says, getting to her feet as well and brushing snow off her coat. "Want to join in?"

"In a second," Joe murmurs, clapping a hand on Frank's shoulder. "Can I have a moment first?"

"No."

Joe tilts his head. "Real fast."

His gloves grip Frank’s elbow like talons before he can decline, yanking him across the yard where his lopsided snowman stands. He pulls Frank behind it as if using it for privacy, fixing him with a sternness that Frank refuses to fall prey to.

"What on earth are you doing?" Joe girts out.

"What?"

"Don't freaking play dumb, Frank," Joe's eyes narrow. "You and Nancy."

“What about me and Nancy?”

Joe jabs Frank hard in the chest like a cop in the middle of an interrogation. Frank wonders if it’s a move he’s stolen from their father. “The flirting, the touching, the gooey stares. What’s up?”

“She broke up with Ned, you know.”

"She did?" Joe takes a moment to pause before grinding his boot into the snow beneath it, clearly annoyed by Frank's inaction. "So why haven't you done anything about it?"

"They just broke up, for gods sake!" Frank tries to use reason even though he knows Joe doesn't function with reason—he uses impulse and instinct. He and Nancy are alike in this aspect. 

"Yes, exactly." Joe's fist jams into Frank's coat again. "What are you waiting for? Confetti?"

Truthfully, Frank doesn't know what he's waiting for. He's probably not waiting at all, just suspended with the fear of rejection, not just of Nancy's love, but her friendship as well. Joe would have already made his move, and this is something Frank has and always will envy about him. Sometimes he wants to curl up in Joe's romantic confidence and take notes, be inspired to flirt more, love easily, be the type of guy who can dangle a mistletoe over his head carelessly.

Joe leans in as if sharing something conspiratory. "She's into you too," he mumbles, lowering his voice. "It's obvious."

"It's not that easy, Joe," Frank grits out. He's resisting the strong urge to shove a handful of snow directly into Joe's mouth. 

“Uh, _yes, it totally is_ ,” Joe says. He throws his hands into the air, spraying snow in the process. "What's not grooving with your jive? The romantic Christmas atmosphere? Spending the holidays together? Making out in the snow?"

"Hey," Frank says sharply. "That last one's not true."

Joe pounds his fist on Frank's coat to get his message across. "But it could be," he persists. "Just set the mood and tell her already."

Frank winds one gloved hand into his hair, the residual snow stuck on the yarn cold on his scalp. "How?"

"I got one word for you, buddy," Joe says. " _Mixtape_."

Frank is not impressed. This isn't a John Hughes movie where all he needs is a boombox and his feelings, with possibly an expensive car stolen from his parents as well. He stares flatly at Joe's pleased smirk. 

"I'm going to need more words," he deadpans. "Any actually good ideas?"

Joe isn't amused. "All my ideas are good," he says, as if to clarify lest Frank start doubting his ingenuity. "I don't fucking know. Get her something. A nice gift."

A nice gift. That sounds simple enough.

\--

Frank, too optimistically for his own good, checks Google in the privacy of his room for _presents to give to a secret love_. He also checks _gifts that reveal your feelings_ and _romantic stocking stuffers_.

Two hours of perusing through homemade bath bomb recipes, the Zales website, and Yahoo Answers that sound like they were written by Joe, Frank gives up on the internet having the answers.

\--

It’s a few days before Christmas when Frank gives up on his search for the perfect present. The feeling of defeat doesn’t sit well with him, especially when he’s being hounded by Joe every other hour to just _man up and tell her already, dude_. 

He has something stupid planned. It was the best he could come up with that didn’t involve making his own soap or buying her a humidifier to proclaim his love, and he’s not entirely proud of it, and he’s almost positive it won’t work. But—as much as he hates to admit it—Joe’s right, and he ought to tell her now before he’s putting it into his New Year’s resolution to never ever be done, let alone acknowledge. 

He’s washing the dishes, Nancy next to him toweling them dry, when he decides to break the news to her.

"Hey," Frank nudges her with his hand. "So, uh. I don't have a Christmas present for you."

Nancy smiles. Frank thinks she might be the only person on this earth who smiles upon being told such a thing. "That's all right." She shakes her head with a soft laugh. "Bess always tells me I'm impossible to shop for."

"Well, see, I sort of have something. Sort of." Frank rolls forward from the balls of his feet, which he's pretty sure are now sweating in anticipation. "I'm not sure if you'll like it."

"I'm sure I will," Nancy says. "What is it?"

He can do this. He can. If he keeps mentally repeating it enough perhaps it'll come true. "It's silly," he tells her, just as a disclaimer. "Okay, get your coat."

"My coat?"

"You'll want it. Some gloves too, probably."

She does so, disappearing down the hall to the coat closet before returning equipped with a coat, leather gloves, and a hat that curls around her confused expression. Frank jams mittens on his hands and wrangles a coat over his own arms just in time to grab her hand, ignore the anxiety—possibly nausea—coiling up his belly and pull her up the stairs.

“Where are we going?”

Frank smiles, pushing open the door to his room. He’s glad that the hall is empty, completely vacant of any onlooking brothers interesting in wolf whistling as they walk by with their held hands. It’s not really hand holding, Frank thinks as he pulls Nancy into the room, not when there’s so much fabric between them.

“You’ll see,” he says, and then stops in front of the window overlooking the neighborhood, most of it aglow with bright lights now perfectly visible in the dark night sky.

He pries the window open, a gust of icy air pushing in. He hooks one leg over the ledge and hoists himself up, just like old times when he and Joe were little and wanted to hide from Aunt Gertrude, then stepping out onto the slanted roof aligned with the window. 

There, just like he set up a few hours ago, is a heavy throw held down at the corners with stones from the yard, a basket equipped with thermoses of eggnog, and a string of yellow Christmas lights snagged from where they were previously aligned with the rain gutter, draped instead around the blanket and wrapped around the nearby chimney.

It looks like a hallmark card, and it also makes Frank go a little tight in his throat, mostly because it oozes romance and the foreshadowing of rejection. He makes room on the roof for Nancy to follow him out the window, her hands deft and used to climbing. He looks at her face as her eyes fall over the scene like he would look at a car wreck, unable to not watch. Her mouth falls open in quiet surprise.

"Oh, Frank," she breathes out. "This is..."

"A little weird, I know," he says, shrugging instantly. "I told you it was silly. I just couldn't think of what to get you."

A part of him wishes Joe would be here too just to diffuse the romantic subtext of a nighttime Christmas picnic on the roof, but then again, that was the whole point of this—draw up a private evening, laden it with romance, and then bare all. It's starting to look a little harder in reality than it did in theory.

"I love it," Nancy says, and for a quick moment, there's a gloved hand in his squeezing out a second's worth of appreciation before she pulls her fingers away.

She doesn't let him babble about what it really means and how unexpectedly bad he turned out to be at finding her adequate gifts, instead crawling forward on the slight slope to settle down on the throw. It's thick, hand-knitted by Aunt Gertrude eons ago, and just warm enough to keep the night cozy alongside the assistance of the eggnog. He sits down next to her on it and tries not to watch her too blatantly as she takes in the view.

"Wow," she says. "It's amazing up here. All the stars seem so clear." She leans back on her elbows, head tipped back as well to stare at the sky. "It's so..."

She trails off, leaving Frank to fill in the blank. "Corny?" He offers.

Nancy shakes her head. "No," she smiles, something softer now, distracted with her awe at the view. "Wonderful."

_You're wonderful_ , Frank wants to say, but he feels it waver uncertainty on his tongue. He wants it to be just right, when it counts and when Nancy wants to hear it. If only he could figure out when that is. 

"What's in this?" Nancy says, reaching for the basket.

"Oh, just some eggnog," Frank says. Nancy pulls out the thermoses, handing one to Frank before unscrewing the lid of her own. Frank nudges her wrist. "I should warn you. I think Joe's the one responsible for spiking it, so... just be careful with that first sip. It might pack a punch."

She laughs, and together, they take a tentative taste. Well, Frank thinks as he smacks his lips after a single gulp, at least his inhibitions will be nice and forgotten.

"Wow," Nancy says, giggling. "I think this'll keep us warm."

Warm and incredibly loose-lipped. No more letting Joe add alcohol to Christmas beverages. Three more sips of this and he could easily be discussing masturbation with his mother without a shred of embarrassment. 

While he screws the lid back onto his thermos, Nancy has already laid herself back down on the throw, her back flat on the curve of the mattress and eyes focused on the stars. He follows suit, stretching out on the blanket to let himself be sucked into the stretch of the sky. The longer he stares, the more stars seem to appear out of the darkness, almost like shy children opening their eyes after a moment's hesitation.

"It makes you feel small, doesn't it?" Nancy says. "Looking at the sky."

"I know what you mean."

"It's like a reminder of how big the universe really is. How much it's made up of."

"I know," Frank says again. "You know what I always liked? Knowing that someone out there was looking at the same moon I was. At the same time. Like the universe draws everyone together somehow."

Nancy makes a soft noise of agreement. Frank knows exactly what she means about the universe being big—overwhelming, even. Looking at the stars makes him feel like confessing how he feels about Nancy is nothing but an inconsequential drop in the world's bucket, just a minor excited blip of a heartbeat in one tiny person's life. If it matters so little in the grand scheme of things, he should be able to say it easily, so easily he could do it ten different ways, ten different times.

"I wish my roof back home would let me do this," Nancy murmurs. "I'd probably have to climb the drainpipe to make it all the way up."

"Hey, you've got strong arms."

He looks at her, catching the tail end of her laugh. He stays like that, head tilted so he can watch the way the soft light from the Christmas decorations illuminate her cheeks. Joe would be prodding him by now— _she's looking at the stars, and you're looking at her_.

"Nance," he says, "I wanted to talk to you, actually."

"Hmm?"

"Yeah." He wishes he knew how to start. How to pull the words into something solid. "You see…"

He trails off. He can do this. This is what he's here to do. But then he looks up and there's Nancy, looking at him and no longer the stars, waiting. He doesn't want to fuck this up. He doesn't want to sit on this roof alone. He wants whatever he can have from her that she's willing to give him, even if it's nothing but friendship. He takes a deep breath that seems to get lost in his lungs.

"You okay?" Nancy asks, her eyebrows furrowed when Frank still doesn't say anything. He closes his mouth, still half open in waiting. 

"...you see, I'm glad you're here," Frank says. He reaches down between them to wrap his mittened hands around hers for a too short moment. 

She looks at him as if waiting for more, a look that suspends between them for a few charged seconds. Maybe she wants to hear him say what he was planning on saying, maybe she's waiting to listen to him tell her that he—

"I'm glad I'm here too, Frank," she says, and the electricity stuck between them seems to fizzle away. “You’re a wonderful friend.”

Frank feels his insides shrivel up like crumpled paper. He can’t do this, not now, not ever, not when Nancy has made herself clear multiple times already—Frank’s her friend, and sometimes even her detective colleague, but not anything more. It’s not like she’s ever said anything to make him think otherwise, which makes him wonder why he’s up here at all, wanting to pour his heart out next to the stars. The night suddenly feels colder, too cold for even the eggnog to warm him up through.

“You are too,” Frank says. He means it, even if his smile is a little tighter than it was before. “Do you want to stay up here a little longer?”

She nods. “I do,” she says, making herself comfortable on the throw with a soft sigh.

They stay for nearly an hour, hardly saying a word, only watching the sky. Frank waits for her to say anything, anything at all, but all she does is send him a smile from her side of the blanket.

\--

“Did you do it?”

Frank shakes his head. Joe’s shoulders fall, a wash of disappointment sliding over his face. “Frankie,” he mumbles, squeezing Frank’s shoulder. He sounds like a saddened teacher, like someone who believed he would do better on this miserable failure of a test, and it’s surprisingly effective Joe is his younger, more foolish brother. “Why not?”

“I just don’t want to ruin what we have,” Frank says. “What we have is pretty damn nice, you know.”

“But you want more.”

“And she doesn’t, and I respect that.” Frank shrugs off Joe’s hand. “Let’s just leave it at that.”

“But.” A moment of frustration grips Joe’s face, tightening his mouth into something exasperated. “She never said she didn’t want you.”

“Please, Joe,” Frank says. “Just drop it.”

Joe stares at him for a long time, as if waiting for him to laugh, or cry, or perhaps change his mind and cave under the pressure. Finally, Joe speaks up again. “All right,” he says through a large sigh. “I’ll drop it.”

\--

“Joe, be careful. You’ll crack the gingerbread.”

“Hey, I know my way around gingerbread,” Joe replies to Nancy. He says it with a sultry edge that Frank doesn’t ever want associated with gingerbread again. “This isn’t my first time using it, you know.”

“Please stop,” Frank pleads. “You’re ruining Christmas. Really.”

Joe waggles his eyebrows at him from across the table. Then again, a table is a truly optimistic way of describing it. Now it resembles a post-apocalyptic wasteland, full of candied garbage and newspaper. There is icing everywhere. Why this is a hell Frank subjects himself to every December is truly unknown.

“I need some more icing,” Joe says. The piping bag is in his mouth, the tip secured between his teeth. “I keep running out.”

“That’s because you’re eating half of it,” Nancy reminds him. She pulls on the end of the bag, yanking it out of Joe’s mouth. It lands on the table with a splat, a dollop of icing squeezing its way out onto the newspaper protecting the table from the mess all three of them have caused it. Not so much Nancy. Nancy is immaculate and perfect and a little hard to watch.

“Hey,” Joe says defensively, picking the bag back up. “I’m not eating that much. I just need a lot of icing. I’m practically making the White House over here.”

“The White House, huh?” Frank says. “Not the building I would’ve referred to. The Colosseum, maybe.”

“Boys, stop bickering,” Laura says, depositing a new bag of icing by Joe’s side of the table. “Goodness. That’s quite a house, Joe.”

“I’m working on it, Mom.”

Frank chuckles to himself. Beating Joe at things always makes him feel better. He’s not exactly an architect, but what he’s in the middle of constructing is definitely better than Joe’s real estate wreck on the other end of the table. And besides, a little bit of cheering up at Joe’s expense isn’t a bad idea right now, not when looking at Nancy every time Mariah Carey starts singing about what she wants for Christmas makes him feel like someone’s dug an icicle into his chest. It’s his own fault, and certainly his heart’s the one to blame, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to hurt any less until she leaves. Only a week or so to go. After New Years, she’ll be back in River Heights and Frank can put himself back together. Maybe take a leaf out of Joe’s book and start hitting on the neighbor girls.

He looks up from the icing clumping on the edge of his piping bag, a somewhat hopeless case as his house droops to the left, and sees Nancy’s creation, practically a mansion with the way it stands with poise and certainty. She’s pushing a gumdrop on the rooftop with a determined concentration when he glances at her, and he’s struck with a punch of affection so strong at the sight that it feels like someone’s knocked the wind out of his lungs. She’s incredible.

“Marry me,” Frank says, and announcing his nomination for biggest doofus of the year is Joe across the table dropping his bag of icing with a splat.

Nancy’s eyes snap up. “What?”

Frank breathes in air unsuccessfully. Did he really just say that out loud? Of course he did. “No, I mean. What I meant to say was—I love you.”

Shit, shit, holy _shit_. His mouth has become a real life garbage disposal, only spewing waste at inopportune times. Now, more than ever before, Frank wishes he were Joe if only because Joe is never taken seriously. Everything he says is a joke. Frank wants people to think what he’s saying is a joke even if it isn’t. It so isn’t, and holy shit, he loves Nancy. Stupidly so. 

“I mean,” Frank still can’t breathe. “I mean—fuck.”

He hastens to get up and his knees hit the table in the process. He wants to swear again, but now his parents staring at him from the kitchen, so he bites the expletives back and all but trips up the stairs.

\--

At two a.m., completely awake courtesy of his new best friend, regret, Frank stares at the ceiling rethinking every moment of the evening when suddenly, a darkness falls over the sliver of light peeking in from under the door. Then a knock sounds on the door, very softly—too gently to be his father, too curtly to be Joe, too late to be his mother. He freezes. 

“Frank?” A voice—Nancy’s voice—filters through the door. A beat passes. “Are you awake?”

Of course he’s awake. He just confessed his love and essentially proposed to a girl only to run away like a spooked deer a few hours ago, he’ll never sleep again. Still, pretending to sleep would definitely have its merits—he definitely considers it up until a voice in his head says _man up, Frank Hardy_ , a voice usually reserved for chasing bad guys. He sits up and clears his throat.

“Yeah,” he calls out, careful not to wake Joe, who responds to his voice with a sleepy grunt. “Come on in.”

The door creaks open, and silhouetted in the light of the hall and wrapped up in a fuzzy bathrobe, Nancy stands. The sight of her hits him with love again—how very much he loves her, how very much it hurts, how very much Joe is laughing at him right now, etc, etc. 

“Hey,” Nancy says. She sits on the edge of the bed, and Frank tries not to read into it that her proximity might mean she’s forgiven him. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“No… you too? Is the guest bed uncomfortable?” He’s spent a night there before when his grandparents visited and knows how the lumps of the old mattress press into spines. “You could sleep here.”

She points to the bed. “Here?”

“Not—not with me,” Frank says. “I’d leave.”

“Oh,” she shifts, and through the dark the heaviness of the moment settles. “That’s okay. You don’t have to go.” She shifts again. “You didn’t finish your gingerbread house.”

“I know. I, uh.” There comes the voice again— _man up, Frank. Ask to kiss her. Just kiss her_. He’s starting to think it’s actually Joe’s voice in his head. “I was just—embarrassed.” He laughs, shakes his head, and looks at where the sheets fold around his knees.

“It’s okay,” Nancy says, reaching out to touch his arm. “You don’t have to say anything. Sometimes the wrong thing just comes out.”

He starts nodding until he realizes what he’s doing, what message he’s sending—that he didn’t mean it, that they should write it all off as a mistake. It’s crazy, almost laughable how he spends his life in dangerous situations but here and now, confronted with the realness of his feelings, he’s scared. And that cowardice, that was probably what drove Nancy away from Ned. He stops nodding and reaches out to grab her wrist.

“No, it didn’t,” he says. This is the bravest he’s ever been, and it feels amazing and awful at the same time. “I meant what I said, even if you didn’t want me to.”

“Frank,” Nancy starts to say, but he has to keep going.

“I think that you’re wonderful,” he breathes out. “I’ve always thought that. I’ve just never had the guts to say it, which is silly, right? I should’ve told you years ago. I love you.”

The words settle around them like dust from an earthquake. He feels like there’s more he has to say, that he’s sorry if he’s putting her on the spot, and it’s okay if she’s not feeling the same things, and he’ll never bring it up again if she’d like—but he’s run out of breath. He hopes to god Joe isn’t awake right now.

In front of him, Nancy says nothing, forcing Frank through the most suspenseful sixty seconds of his life. It starts feeling like eons of silence, the idea of erupting into laughter and yelling _just kidding!_ starting to cross his mind. She stills, as if thinking—of Frank, probably. He wants to reach out to her, to touch her cheek and pull her close enough to wrap his arms around, but for now, he thinks he's done enough. 

"Frank," she says. She stops, shaking her head, and a second later laughter comes out of her mouth. Bright, amused, incredulous laughter that nearly rouses Joe out of his snoring. "I can't believe you said all that."

"Uh," he says. "I'm sorry?"

"No," she stops laughing at that. "Don't say that." And then she kisses him. 

It startles Frank, even when it shouldn't. It feels like he blinks and suddenly the space between them dwindles down into nothing, leaving nothing but a moment's pause and preparation before a soft pair of lips—Nancy's lips—are on his.

It doesn’t feel like a pity kiss, or a rejection kiss, or even a goodbye kiss. It feels like a _kiss_ kiss, the type people in movies probably experience when the violins start playing, and Frank gets with the program quickly. He wraps his arms around her slim frame, tiny in his grip as his hands ghost up her sides to settle around her waist, and angles their lips together just in time to hear her sigh softly, something content and pleased.

"You know what," Nancy says, her hand tracing the seam of the comforter, "I think I will sleep here."

"You will?"

She nods, climbing over him to crawl under the sheets next to him, slipping her feet under them after shrugging off her bathrobe. Frank wishes he had his lamp on if only to see her face, half of it licked up with glowing light while she makes herself comfortable next to him. He swallows, taking a moment to appreciate that here he is, in bed, at home, with Nancy Drew lying next to him, his to hold for the time being. 

She turns on her side, a petite woman with soft curves Frank wishes he could admire under daylight, but with a funny thrill, he realizes he will be able to in the morning. She knows he loves her, and she's still here. Things are looking up, Frank thinks. 

He pulls the covers up over them and looks at how the linens dip down to meet her waist, how her hair pools onto the pillow. He reaches out to wind his hand into one of her locks, silken under his touch, and decides to obey the urge to scoot closer.

Nancy turns into his warmth, her knees brushing his as she angles her body near his. The shadows run down the slope of her nose, darkness Frank wants to outline with his fingers. Maybe he has time. Maybe this is just the start. 

Nancy's hand suddenly curls into his, warm and soft against his palm. "Me too, you know," she murmurs.

His stomach lurches in his chest like a roller coaster arched over the first plunge. He was wrong—rejection isn't what will keep him awake forever, it's the knowledge that Nancy wants him too. The possibilities, the opportunities, the new way they can admire each other without any burdens of guilt or uncertainty. 

"We'll talk more tomorrow," she says, squeezing his hand. 

"Okay," he agrees. 

And despite everything, especially his racing heart, he falls asleep.

\--

When Frank wakes up, the other half of his bed is empty. 

There are creases where Nancy was pressed all night, the sheets curling into wrinkles to remind him of her presence. He runs his palm over her side, feeling for lingering warmth, and finds she must've been awake for some time when he’s met with cold linens. On the floor, her bathrobe has been plucked off the floor as well. 

He notices a tiny note on the pillow then, folded neatly and reading _Got hungry! Making breakfast downstairs!_ with a tiny penned heart in the corner. It’s ridiculous how much a tiny drawn heart makes his own jump.

He gets out of bed, pulling on his own robe and sliding into his bedside slippers before heading downstairs. The rest of the house is quiet, his parents probably sleeping in and his aunt still in her room, casting a crisp silence throughout the halls. He pads toward the kitchen, and that’s when he sees Nancy bent over the stove with a bowl and a spoon in her hand. She’s in her bathrobe and in striped pajama bottoms, a sight so gorgeous his heart nearly melts. He’s so far gone.

Frank slides up behind her, taking advantage of her obliviousness of his presence by curling his arms around her middle and tucking himself against her back. She jolts when he wraps his arms around her, a surprised "oh!" rushing out of her mouth before she relaxes in his hold. Her head twists around to look at him, a lock of her hair tickling his cheek in the process. 

"You startled me," she chides. "Announce yourself next time."

She says nothing reprimanding in terms of the arms around her middle, instead leaning against his chest. She's warm and small and wonderful against him, and the resulting feeling bubbling up inside him makes Frank want to sing Christmas carols from the roofs.

"Sorry," he says. He settles his nose into her neck and decides, on impulse, to kiss the soft skin behind her ear. "You left me alone in bed this morning."

She grins; he can feel the muscles of her neck moving. "I thought you were a big enough boy to handle it," she says.

"You thought wrong."

She laughs and it is positively the best sound Frank has ever heard this early in the morning. Her hair brushes his cheek again, this time letting his nose catch a whiff of her shampoo. It smells of jasmine.

"I didn't want your mom to catch me in your bed," Nancy says, nudging him with her elbow. "I know she gets up early."

"Oh," Frank takes a moment to appreciate her grade-A observation skills. "Not a bad idea then."

"And I thought I might as well make breakfast."

He looks over her shoulder to the bowl she's working over, a creamy batter whisked into a flurry of bubbles by her hand. He grins. "Pancakes?"

“Yes,” she says. “It’s Hannah’s recipe. I bet you’ll love them.”

“I bet I will,” Frank murmurs, and then gives into the urge to kiss her neck once more. She’s incredibly soft under his touch, tilting her head aside to give him more room, so of course that’s exactly when—

"Oh my."

Frank stiffens and turns to the left just in time to see his mother's eyes widen from where she's standing frozen in the door. He promptly moves away from Nancy's backside, feeling ineffably like a child again, caught upstairs taking apart his father's police radio.

The smile on his mother's face creeps up her lips slowly, knowingly. Frank resists the urge to hang his head in shame or possibly, beg for privacy. She giggles, impossibly high-pitched and incredibly amused, as if watching her son share an intimate moment over pancake batter is the juiciest thing she's witnessed in weeks. 

"Good morning, Frank. Nancy. So sorry to interrupt," she nods to them both, not bothering to cover the giddy smile breaking apart her face. 

"Not at all," Nancy says quickly. "Would you like some pancakes, Mrs. Hardy?"

“Perhaps later, after you’ve finished,” she says. “You two have fun.”

She backs out of the doorway, tiny giggles following her on the way out as she leaves. She probably thinks she knows exactly what she’s stumbled over, exactly how excited Frank is over the developments, and unfortunately, Frank thinks she’s probably right. He massages at the bridge of his nose with his fingertips, waiting for the humiliation to subside.

"What was that about not wanting to be seen by my mom?"

He laughs, wondering if it'll ever be possible to keep secrets from his parents, and digs his head into his hands. Nancy pries his fingers away a moment later, stepping close to him. 

"Relax," she soothes. Her hand finds its way into his hair, tucking a strand behind his ear. “It wasn’t that bad. It could’ve been worse.”

“Really?”

She shrugs, returning to the bowl of batter still sitting on the counter. “It could’ve been Joe. Then he would’ve posted the news all over social media in under thirty seconds.”

“Well, that’s true,” Frank says. “Plus, we might still have a ringing in our ears from his screaming.”

“That’s true too,” Nancy stops to look over her shoulder. “He’s really devoted to the idea of you having a girlfriend, huh?”

“Not quite. Just the idea of you and me.”

A smile takes her mouth by surprise. It still astonishes Frank how unaware she seems to be for someone so sharp of exactly how long Frank’s been over the moon for her. He thoughts it was practically blaring out of his ears. Everybody else seemed to think so.

His eyes travel past her to where his mother's kitchen calendar is hung up over the sink. It’s Christmas Eve. 

Wow, okay. So this is what it feels like to have someone to hold around Christmastime. 

\--

It's clear by the time dinner is served that the news of Frank and Nancy is no longer a secret.

It starts with the long hug Frank sees his mother envelope Nancy in after they finish Nancy's pancakes in the morning, the sort of motherly embrace that looks like she's fully expecting them to be in-laws sooner rather than later. The news spreads to his father by lunch, who corners Frank and claps a hand on his shoulder with a congratulatory thumbs up that Frank doesn't know how to interpret. Aunt Gertrude stops him to warn Frank about the horrors of young pregnancy, a truly nightmarish conversation he has never had with her before and hopes to never have again, before wishing him luck in love. And then there's Joe, who's miraculously in the know last when he crawls under the dinner table to fetch his fallen fork and sees Nancy's hand on Frank's knee.

"Holy shit," is all that comes out from under the table, followed by a relieved "finally!" when his head reemerges. 

"Joe!"

"Right, sorry, mom. What I meant to say was _Nancy and Frank are totally in relationship cahoots_. Is this going in the family newsletter or what?"

He looks so excited, so genuinely ecstatic for Frank that it seems almost cruel to burst his bubble. Almost. 

"Everybody else already knew, Joe," Frank says gently. 

"What? Are you kidding me?" A clatter of silverware follows as Joe's hands slam down on the table. "I'm your right hand man and you didn't tell me? I want details!"

"There's not much to share," Nancy says, shifting in her chair.

"Not much to share? I've been hounding this guy to own up to his feelings for centuries and now—dude, fucking ow!!"

Joe rubs under the table where Frank's foot collided sharply with his shin, sending an apologetic glance over the table at Aunt Gertrude, who looks more than scandalized at Joe's foul language. He leans across the table, nearly knocking over his hot chocolate in the process.

“Details,” Joe hisses to Frank. “I want them later.”

Frank pushes him back into his seat.

\--

They open presents on Christmas night, which Frank is fine with if only to see Joe squirm all morning long waiting to rip into gifts.

Frank looks around at the piles of wrapping paper surrounding him like festive clouds. By now, most of them are open, sitting unwrapped in all their glory under the tree while the few unwrapped gifts sit hidden in their presence. Aunt Gertrude already fell asleep half an hour ago in her ancient rocking chair, content to miss out on the present opening once she was laden with her own gifts, and Laura and Fenton are grabbing a cup of eggnog from the fridge. If it’s the same batch Joe spiked, Frank expects them to be getting frisky in the kitchen any moment now.

“Are there any left?” Frank asks. He’s a little exhausted. There’s only so much food he can eat and still be expected to stay awake through the entire gift giving process. Joe ducks under the tree to check.

“That’s a negative,” he says. “Man. We opened them all.”

“Wait,” Nancy says, pulling a present out from behind her back. “I have something.”

“You do? Is it for both of us?” Joe asks, remerging from under the tree.

“Sure, you can both have it,” she says. "Remember that case we were working together on the train?"

"How could I forget? We unearthed a piece of history, got to ride on a historical train, and even got to watch Lori Girard cry in a train station over her credit cards."

"And we got to beat that Wonder Cop Balducci," Joe pipes in. "He was digging behind an outhouse when we were finding Lincoln's letter."

Nancy clears her throat. "We?"

"Sorry, Nance. All you."

"Anyway," Nancy steers the conversation back on track, handed Frank a small gift—neatly wrapped, nearly flat, hardly heavy. "Turns out we have a souvenir."

Frank opens it, taking his time untucking the tape even as Joe groans about "unnecessary cleanliness" in the background. There, in his hand, is a framed photograph of him, Joe, and Nancy seated at the table they had made their headquarters on the train. None of them seem to be aware of the photograph being taken, all of them focused on documents and information sprawled out on the tablecloth, concentrated on their detective work. It's the perfect candid shot of them on the job, save only a possible photograph of the three of them simultaneously karate-chopping bad guys. 

"John Grey took pictures of all the cars at one point to look for Camille's ghost on the film, and we sneaked into one of his shots,” Nancy explains. “I don’t know why, I just loved it. Maybe because you can see how… into our work we are.”

Joe leans over Frank’s shoulder to look at the photograph as well. “Wow. Look at us detectives in our natural habitat.”

Frank ignores him. Nancy’s right—it’s the perfect photo that showcases how much they all love their jobs, especially working together. Things just feel right when Frank’s focused on solving a mystery with his brother on one side and Nancy on the other, their combined brain power doing the work for them. Suddenly, even his nighttime picnic on the roof seems lame in comparison to the frame in his hand.

“I love it,” Frank says. He lets out a bark of laughter. “You realize this is probably how everybody else sees us? Crazily involved with our work?”

“Probably,” Nancy says.

They look at each other for a moment, both smiling, before Frank puts the frame down and scoots forward to wrap her into a hug. These hugs from the last few days have felt different, almost like they’re loaded with intimacy. Frank doesn’t want to let go just yet, up until—

“This is very touching and all,” Joe pipes up, “but there are still other presents to unwrap!”

\--

As usual, it’s Frank who ends up being put on wrapping paper duty after all the presents have been opened and the aftermaths have turned the living room into a veritable wreck of crumpled paper. Frank wades through it, grabbing an armful of it before lumbering back over to the recycling bin. 

His parents are enjoying their fourth or fifth Christmas nightcap in the kitchen, Aunt Gertrude already asleep in front of the fireplace. It’s been a good Christmas, especially considering that Frank was convinced he would spend most of it wrapped in the throes of woe and pining. It’s still a little surreal to know that the pining is over. He never has to, as Joe would put it, _longingly look at Nancy with pinched heartstrings_ ever again.

He stuffs the last of the wrapping paper in the garage recycling bin nearly fifteen minutes later. He’s very meticulous about separating bows from paper to save for next year, a detail Joe always overlooks when he’s on wrapping paper duty. It takes a little longer but honestly, why waste bows.

He’s on his way back to the living room to unplug the tree when he overhears Joe and Nancy, their voices soft murmurs through the doorway where they’re still sitting next to the tree skirt. He stops himself on impulse, standing by the wall to listen in.

"So you and Ned... that's over, right?"

Nancy sighs. "Yes, Joe. We're definitely over."

"So you're not considering going back to him?" A beat passes in which Frank can perfectly envision the way Joe must be narrowing his eyes. "What if you and Frank goes in the crapper?"

Lovely, Frank thinks. At least his brother has faith in his ability to hold a relationship longer than the duration of winter break. 

"Ned isn't my back-up," Nancy says. "He's moved on too."

"What? With who?"

"I'm pretty sure he and Deirdre started going out. I saw them getting pretty cozy at Bess' Halloween party."

" _Deirdre?_ Deirdre Shannon?"

Frank hears Nancy's answering laugh. He listens for something wistful, something resigned and melancholy in her voice that might imply that she misses Ned, but the only thing there is amusement. It relaxes Frank more than he expects it to.

"I think they'll be good for each other. Not to mention that she's been interested in him in a long time."

Joe joins in with the laughter now, his chuckles still slightly dampened in comparison to what Frank knows he's capable of.

"That was fast, wasn't it?"

"Excuse me?" Nancy says. "About as fast as me and Frank."

"Nah," Joe says. "You guys have been half in love for a while." He pauses again, long enough that Frank thinks the conversation might be over. Then, "I'm not an idiot, you know."

"I know. Just me this time."

"Not just you— _both_ of you. I've been egging Frank on for what feels like frickin' eons. For such smart people you guys sure are slow."

They laugh again. 

"Well, I think we've come to our senses."

"I'm glad." There's a noise of shifting fabric like Joe has pulled Nancy closer, perhaps tucking her into his side for a reassuring squeeze. "Hey, I'm not just here to bust your balls. I'm here on behalf of Frank's integrity."

"His integrity?"

"Yeah. He's a good guy, you know," Joe sighs. His usual air of constant humor feels momentarily dropped. "He really likes you. Really. So whatever you do, just. Just know that."

"I'm not looking to hurt him, Joe. I like him too."

"Good. Cause if you do..."

A whack sounds, like Nancy's slapped Joe in the chest. Frank doesn't blame her, not when he's halfway stuck between being touched by Joe's caring and mortified by his younger brother speech of warning. 

"Joe, are you seriously trying to threaten me?"

"Hey, I'm just looking out for my bro." The heavy air seems to lift then, making way for something more light-hearted. "Come on, let's hug it out."

Frank's heard enough. Juggling the glasses of eggnog, he rounds the corner just in time to see Joe giving Nancy a few brotherly pats on the back as their conversation draws to s close. His expression shifts instantly the moment he sees Frank, suddenly the chipper face of nonchalance. 

"Hey, Frank! You brought eggnog!"

He and Nancy pull apart, both acting perfectly casual. Frank is pretty impressed with their acting skills as he doles out the glasses and doesn't see a single crack in either of their innocent smiles. 

"What're you guys chatting about?"

Joe and Nancy share a none too discreet glance as if confirming their alibi. Scratch that about them ever being good actors. Joe springs into action. 

"Australian gorillas," he says promptly. "Did you know Nancy went undercover as one on a case once? Crazy stuff."

He winks at Nancy. Frank would roll his eyes if he wasn't so touched. "I had no idea."

"Really? Maybe you guys should discuss that. Great story." Joe claps his hands together and points to the doorway to announce his timely exit. "Well, I'm out. Merry Christmas and all that." He's halfway out the door when he swings back in. "Oh, by the way, Nance. My Christmas gift to you is that I'm moving to the guest room until your trip's over. Let you and Frank enjoy the honeymoon period."

He winks again, which Frank does not need to see more of, and then he’s gone, his heavy footsteps thumping up the stairs to hopefully grab his pillow and vacate from his and Frank’s room. He has to admit, it’s a pretty nice present.

“Hey,” Frank says, tucking an arm around Nancy. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, Frank.”

They let the moment sit around them for a second, taking in the spirit of the holiday. The lights are still twinkling on the tree, and the fire is still warm where it’s crackling by the rocking chair Aunt Gertrude is snoring in, and the sound of laughter from the kitchen wafts all the way over to the living room. This is typically where Frank starts feeling melancholy about the holidays ending, but this year, he’s not feeling the same tug of sadness.

“Wanna go upstairs?” Frank offers. “We could put Joe’s gift to use.”

Nancy laughs, and then tugs him up the stairs.

\--

"Your brother just gave me the run around."

"I know. I was listening."

Nancy chuckles where she's pulling her socks off at the foot of Frank's bed. It's truly a miraculous act of Christmas cheer that his parents have said nothing of the fact that Nancy's no longer occupying the sofa, instead moving herself up to Frank's room to share his bed. That too, Frank thinks is a miracle, even something as simple as having Nancy on the foot of his bed undressing herself. That he gets to experience this, having her near enough to touch and being allowed to do so.

"Eavesdropping?" Nancy asks. "What were you expecting, that I'd confess to Joe that it's secretly him I want, not you?"

"No," Frank pulls his shirt off, folding it on the dresser. He can't believe he's folding clothes. He might be just that nervous about being alone in the dark with Nancy when there isn't a criminal to chase or a boundary line to stay wary of. "And God, please don't ever joke about you and my brother like that again. Just... no."

She chuckles, getting to her feet to slide her hands over Frank's shoulder. She squeezes the muscles there, her thumbs rubbing in small circles that make Frank contemplate proposing marriage again. 

"Duly noted."

"Sorry about listening in," Frank says. "It was just sort of nice to hear him take a stand for me. And hear you tell him that you like me too."

Nancy tuts. Her hands stop their ministrations, instead turning Frank around to look him straight in the eye. Even in the dark, he can see exactly how strikingly blue hers are. 

"You already knew that."

"I know. It's just nice hearing you say it."

He wonders for a split second if she loves him, and if she does, if she loves him a fraction as much as he knows he loves her. His feelings for her make him feel like he'll split at the seams when he looks at her sometimes, destined to boil over with all this affection buried inside—except, suddenly, it's not buried inside anymore. It's out in the open for him to share and let loose and tell her about. That feels almost as overwhelming as all the rest.

"And what about you?" Nancy says.

"What?"

"You get to hear me spill my heart to Joe," she reminds him. "When do I get to eavesdrop on your feelings?"

"How about I just tell you right now?"

She looks to the ceiling, as if considering the idea. "That'll do."

"Okay," he scoots closer. "You make me really happy."

Her face lights up a moment later—not too obviously, but with just enough tells that Frank knows she’s happy. A twitch of her nose, an upward stretch of her lips, a crinkle by her eyes. In that moment Frank wonders why he's still wondering over if Nancy loves him when truthfully, it's obvious that she does. He feels another swell under his chest that feels like the launch of an airplane and swipes his finger over her cheek. 

For a second, the moment—hell, even this entire holiday—seems to have been built just for them. Outside his window across the yard, lights are twinkling on the neighbor's patio, and closer still, snow is blanketing the entire neighborhood, perfectly setting the mood. Frank takes the cues and kisses her.

He's still not used to the way she feels pressed up against him—all soft skin and soft noises, strong arms and smooth lips. She arches into him with hands wound around his neck that feel natural, almost as if this is old lover’s routine for them, except that it all still feels new and fresh to Frank. He’s pretty sure it will always feel like this, always new, always special. 

It feels like it’s all happening on fast forward after that. They fall on the bed, Nancy giggling as the mattress bounces, and Frank silences her when his lips trail down her neck. Her hands clutch at him, grabbing palmfuls of his clothing to keep him in place—as if he has any idea of leaving—while he kisses under her jaw, right at her pulse point, down to her jugular. 

She breathes out his name, and the sound rushes through him in a warm thrill. He wants to hear it again, preferably on repeat, the way she says _Frank_ like she might just be in love with him. His hands are shaking, the nerves running through him at two hundred miles an hour.

Nancy’s hand lands on top of his, pulling it up her chest until, until—okay, Frank can keep up. Her hand pushes his down over her shirt, right over her breast, and for a second, breathing becomes a real problem for Frank. Through the weary fabric of her nightshirt, he can feel every bump of Nancy’s skin, every beat of her heart, and he wants more, much more. He wants to feel her heart rate speed up, to see her chest heave with ragged breaths, and moves his lips down from her neck to her midsection. More than anything he wants to touch her, explore her, taste her, and at the same time, he doesn't want it to all be over too soon. 

"Do you think we have to talk about this?" Frank asks from where he’s poised over her, one hand trailing down her stomach and the other encircling her wrist.

She looks down at him. Her lips are swollen from their kisses and her hair is disheveled where he dug his fingers, everything about her breathtaking. He wonders why on earth he’s pacing himself, why he’s not grabbing her by the waist and pulling her close enough to kiss every inch of her undiscovered skin, but then she smiles at him, laughing out something breathless.

“Now?” she asks, her hand curling into the hair at the nape of his neck. “What do you want to talk about?”

He had it a moment ago. He _had it_ , right there in his brain, on the tip of his tongue. “I have no clue.” Her thumb on his neck is distracting him too much to concentrate. “Do you want this?”

She raises her eyebrows. “That’s your question?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Frank props himself up on his elbows, looking her in the eye. “Is this something real?”

The questions falls into silence. He wonders if he’s pushing this too far, especially so soon after Nancy’s break-up. She’s the type to run wild and free, something she probably just discovered for herself after realizing Ned wasn’t right for her, and here’s Frank trying to tie her down. The thing is, though, that he wants to run beside her, even if he can’t keep up. He wants to give them a real chance. He brushes his fingers down Nancy’s cheek and she grabs his hand, squeezing.

“It already was a long time ago,” she says. “I just don’t think either of us noticed.”

Frank huffs out a laugh. “Oh, I noticed.”

“You did, did you?”

“Yeah,” he pulls up the hem of her shirt, just enough to reveal sliver of her hip, and kisses the skin there. “You were the one who was totally oblivious.”

She opens her mouth to retaliate, her eyebrows creasing into something defensive and adorable, but he surges up and kisses her before she can speak. Her words die between their mouths, her arms coming around his shoulders to hold him close.

She doesn't let go. 

\--

Nearly a week passes. Frank has never been less aware of the world around him in his life and more focused on one individual person.

Joe points it out to him when a few days after Christmas, he holds up a sign at dinner that reads _remember me?_

\--

“Frank.”

Frank furrows his eyebrows, unwilling to give in to whoever thinks it’s a good idea to wake him up right now. He clutches onto slumber, something that had him embraced in a warm hug just a moment ago, and ignores the shakes to his shoulder. 

“Frank.”

It’s Nancy’s voice, which makes whatever’s happened marginally more important than if it were Joe currently trying to rouse him from sleep for shits and giggles. He groans, too tired to even entertain the idea of waking up, but Nancy’s soft hand curled around his arm shakes him once more.

“Frank, wake up.”

He rolls over, thankfully not blinded by morning sunlight. The clock on the nightstand reads _11:21 p.m._ , and he blinks the sleep from his eyes to try to focus on Nancy’s blurry form in the dark.

Then he remembers: it's New Year's Eve. He and Nancy were planning on staying up together to watch fireworks from the window, see if the surrounding neighborhoods had any illegal firework displays planned, and then a large dinner caught up with him and he ended up passed out on the bed with Nancy next to him. It was just supposed to be a quick nap, something to help him digest and sleep off dinner. Clearly his body decided to extend it into full-blown slumber.

“Shit, did I fall asleep before midnight?” he asks, rubbing the corners of his eyes.

“Listen,” she says, shushing him with a hand over his mouth.

He listens, and there, in the dark, a quiet tapping makes it to his ears. It’s coming from the wall, the wall that connects to Joe’s room, and for a second, Frank tries to make out if it’s Morse code. It only seems to be a steady, infuriating tapping without rhyme or reason. He taps back, harder than necessary.

The tapping stops. The creak of a floorboard hits the air instead, and then, the groan of an opening door, and the sound of footsteps approaching Frank’s door. His door slips open, letting in a sliver of light, and Joe slides in, fully dressed and fully awake. 

“Joe, what’s up?”

“Were you two asleep?” Joe’s eyes scan the two of them in their pajamas under the sheets. “It’s New Year’s Eve. Live a little, grandma and grandpa.”

Frank grabs his pillow and hurls it in Joe’s direction. He catches it easily, holding it behind his back. Frank should’ve gone for something harder, like his alarm clock.

“What do you want?”

“I just told you, it’s _New Year’s Eve_. And I just heard that there’s a rocking part down the street at Chet’s house. We’re going.”

"To a party?"

"Loosen up a little, Frank. You might see two teensy fireworks from the window if you're lucky if you stay here. Chet's got the key to his parent's booze cellar." Joe lays each hand flat, tipping his palms left and right as if imitating a scale. Frank thinks he's being mocked. "Which sounds better?"

"Why would I care about Chet's parents' booze cellar?"

"Come onnnn," Joe punctuates his desperation with a steady rocking back and forth of his feet. "This is a real be there or be square situation."

"I don't know," Frank folds his arms together and turns to Nancy. "You game?"

Joe slaps Frank in the shoulder. "Come on!" he says again, eyes wilder this time. "Would you rather be watching Times Square celebrate better than we are from the living room TV, or would you rather be rocking it up in Chet's basement?" The scale is back again, Joe's hand tipping in favor of his own plan. 

"We can go," Nancy says. “It’ll make Joe shut up.”

“You’re right,” Frank says. He stifles a yawn and peels himself from the bed, grabbing the nearest pants he can find sprawled by the bed. Joe fist pumps the air, clapping his hands.

“Yes! Meet me downstairs in ten minutes.”

\--

Amazingly enough, Chet Morten's basement party turns out to be a good call. 

For starters, the party is in full swing when they arrive, probably thanks to the lack of any parents in the house and an abundance of alcohol. There also happens to be a DJ who's currently in the middle of mixing up techno party tunes with classic Christmas songs when Frank walks in the front door, so all in all, it looks to be a night well spent. 

He loses Nancy nearly ten minutes in, the crowd sweeping up all of them in different directions until Frank finds himself almost in the middle of a mosh pit raving to NSYNC in the middle of the living room. He worms his way out before the ill-advised crowd surfing and overhead lamp swinging begins, snagging a beer sitting in a red cup on the kitchen table for giggle's sake before checking his watch. Four minutes to midnight. 

He hurries downstairs, eyes scanning the crowd for Nancy's familiar hair. He sees her near the wall chatting with Chet's cousins after checking two different rooms, eager to find her before the countdown. He won’t say it out loud—Joe would mock him for the rest of eternity—but he wants to make sure she’s there next to him when midnight strikes. Who cares about getting a kiss, just having her there will be fucking magnificent.

“Hi,” Frank says, approaching her. Chet’s cousin, bless her, seems to take a hint without any needed prodding and disappears into the throng of people, the buzz of noise heightening as midnight approaches. “It’s almost midnight.”

Nancy checks her watch. “It is,” she beams up at him. “You have any resolutions?”

“Oh, the usual. Learn a new language, eat healthy, try not to kill Joe. I probably won’t stick to any of them.”

She laughs, tucking herself closer to him as the crowd seems to thicken. There’s a TV down here, blaring the noise of Times Square and all its inhabitants as the camera stays focused on the ball, not yet dropping. Soon.

"So," Frank says, taking a small sip from his red cup. It's not sparkling champagne, but at the same time, he's a teenager at an illegitimate New Year's Eve party. Questionable beer will do. "They say what you're doing at midnight is what you'll be doing all year long."

Nancy nods, a small smile tugging on her lips. "Right." She turns to him. "Interesting myth."

Frank nods as well. The ruckus around them has heightened, the cheery din turning into a mad, drunken haze of anticipation as the minutes to midnight tick closer. Couples have already partnered off, sitting on each other's laps and laughing together in corners, a direct contrast to the larger, louder groups of friends ready to kiss the nearest lampshade during the countdown. He spots Joe in the corner, flirting with a bubbly brunette who looks perfectly appeased at the idea of making out when the clock chimes, and flashes him a quick thumbs up when Joe looks in his direction. 

He looks over at Nancy then, cheeks tinged slightly pink—either with a slight tipsiness or something else, something more subtle. He wants to spend the whole year by her side, no matter how—as detectives, as friends, as more than that. He swills the contents of his cup before downing the remains, turning to her with a new shot of courage.

"Hey," he extends his hand to her, palm up. "Want to stay here with me?"

She looks at his hand, an open invitation for her to stay. For now, for midnight, for the next year. She smiles, then slots her fingers in his. 

"Yes," she says. "I do want to."


End file.
